"The Minister of Finance of Latvia Dana Reizniece-Ozola defeats World Champion Hou Yifan in round 4"

Woman Grandmaster Dana Reizniece-Ozola from Latvia is a well-known chess player: she earned her WGM title fifteen years ago, has been European Champion under 18-years old, a long-time member of the Latvian national team. But not many people are aware of her immensely successful professional career outside chess, culminating in becoming a Minister in the government of her native country: after serving as Minister of Economics since 2014, she is now the Minister of Finance of Latvia – perhaps the most politically significant titled chess player ever!

Holding such a high position brings additional responsibilities, which makes Dana’s presence in Baku even more remarkable. On September 9^th the monthly Eurogroup meeting is held (the gathering of the Finance Ministers of all EU-member countries), to discuss the serious economic matters tantalizing the European Union. Still, Dana has found the time to come and represent her country in the Chess Olympiad, and quite successfully so! Today she scored what is arguably the best individual result in her entire chess career: she beat World Champion Hou Yifan from China! Latvia narrowly lost the match 1.5-2.5, but the team certainly had reason to celebrate anyway.

The proud winner kindly found time to share a few thoughts with Anastasia Karlovich after the game. In her own words, she is delighted to have beaten the World Champion, especially because the game was of pretty decent quality. She feels that playing dynamic chess against such a strong opponent is the optimal strategy, and today it fully paid her back. She obtained a slight edge after the opening and eventually got her illustrious opponent stuck with a bad bishop; this positional factor decided the game in the end.

The media team will certainly try to get hold of Dana in the coming days for a more extensive conversation – there is so much to talk about! And most of all, we would like to find out her view on which battle is harder: playing the World Chess Champion in Baku or fighting with Europe’s Finance Ministers in Brussels!